Worship Service…
We have seen various worship services during the last few weeks while my wife is recovering from her ankle surgery.
Several people prepared dinner for us, and many of them did not drop the food off, but stayed with us and spent time with us.
Some friends came over to our house and cleaned while I was at work.
Other friends picked up our children and took them where they needed to go, because Margaret could not drive.
There are many, many, many other acts of service that people did on our behalf. I believe that God sees this type of service as an offering of worship to him. Consider these verses:
Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies–in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 4:8-11 ESV)
Have you participated in a worship service lately?
Romans prescription…
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:9-21 ESV)
Accountability and Vulnerability…
This is a quote from Doug Pagitt’s book Preaching Re-Imagined. He draws a distinction between accountability and vulnerability. Is this a valid distinction? Can we be accountable but not vulnerable? Are we called by God to one or both of these?
When we’re not careful, our churches can lose the spirit of true hospitality and friendship that are the core of life-changing relationships. When I speak of hospitality, I don’t mean a lunch-in-the-church-basement kind of hospitality. I mean something that takes the kindness and generosity of those meals and adds a new level of vulnerability. This vulnerability is a step beyond accountability. Accountability assumes a person will do her own work as she seeks to live a Christian life while others will do what they can to keep her on track. Vulnerability is a call beyond merely asking others to hold us to living in the way of Jesus—it’s inviting them to participate in our efforts to do so.
In the world, but not of the world…
Lately, I have been meditating on the following passage:
I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people-not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler-not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” (1 Cor. 5:9-13)
This passage has been very convicting to me. As I have written previously, I usually live within a Christian subculture. As I look around, I see many Christians living within a Christian bubble. This is not the way that we are meant to live. We are meant to interact with the world: to be in the world though we are not of the world.
The interesting thing about the passage above is that we are taught to spend time with unbelievers-even with those who are sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers, and idolators. God expects us to spend time with them. However, we are told not even to eat with someone who calls himself a brother and lives in this manner.
This is not natural for me. I do not want to be around the sexually immoral, greedy, swindlers, and idolators. So, tonight I asked some of my brothers and sisters to hold me accountable to act just as Paul instructs us to act. In other words, I asked them to confront me if I am not spending more time eating with people who are not part of the kingdom of God. That seems strange even thinking it.
But, I know that it is God’s will. How do I know that it is God’s will? Well, besides the fact that Paul said so in 1 Cor. 5:9-13, I have a better way of knowing that it is God’s will for me to hang around lost people. I know it is his will, because that’s what he did.
On Being Honored…
Believe it or not, I am a pastor. No, not that kind of pastor. I don’t preach every Sunday. In fact, I usually don’t even wear a coat and tie. I don’t get paid by the church. But, for some reason, the church has recognized me as one of their pastors. (We currently have two. We have had as many as four. We are currently praying for guidance from the Holy Spirit in order to recognize one or two others.)
Recently, we have been discussing “vocational pastors” or paying pastors. As almost everyone that is a part of our church knows, I am not for paying pastors a salary. However, I do believe it is biblical for those who are taught and those who are led to honor/hold in high esteem/share all good things with those who teach them and those who lead them. This should certainly include pastors.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to describe how I have recently been honored. Perhaps this will help others see that “honor” does not necessarily mean paying a salary, and that paying a salary does not remove the individual’s responsibility of honoring.
First, some background information. My family moved out of seminary housing and into a “real” house last July. We love our house! We have had an extraordinary amount of help from those within the church. They helped us move in. They helped us arrange the furniture. They helped us install appliances. They helped us hang ceiling fans. Hopefully, you get the idea.
However, there is one thing that we’ve wanted to do that we have not been able to do yet. Our house has a gas fireplace. But, it did not have the propane tank necessary to fuel the fire. Because of some unexpected medical expenses (when are medical expenses expected?) we have not been able to afford the tank and fuel yet.
So, yesterday, my wife received a phone call from the local propane distributor. Someone had called them and paid for us to have a propane tank installed and paid for the first fill-up. Wow! We were overwhelmed! I still do not know who did this for us (But, I do have some ideas).
Think about this for a moment. In order for someone to honor us in this way, they had to spend time with us. We did not make it known publicly that we wanted a propane tank but had not been able to afford it yet. So, someone spent time with us and got to know us beyond the stage of, “Hi. How are you? Fine.” Then, instead of hoping that we can one day afford the propane, they acted on what they knew about us.
Now, I have been honored in many, many, many ways. Many people have brought us food and spent time with us, especially over the last few weeks as my wife recovers from ankle surgery. Many people have given us gifts and taken us to dinner. Many people have encouraged us and listened to us. We have been honored in many ways, and I appreciate every instance of being honored. In fact, I feel that I am honored above and beyond anything that I deserve.
When I think about the possibility of receiving a salary… I think I would prefer to be honored in these small, but very personal ways instead.
The Lord’s Supper…
Since I posted my tongue-in-cheek look at what I learned about the Lord’s Supper while growing up “in church”, I thought I would post what I now believe about the Lord’s Supper. However, someone stole my thunder. Tim Cowen recently posted the following in the comment section (12/11/2006 10:34 am) of another blog. I think he explains the Lord’s Supper (LS) as well as I have heard it explained. What do you think?
Furthermore, the LS was not JUST given for the use of a local gathering. In the case of the LS, we see even a sadder misuse of this beautiful symbol of our oneness/ covenant with Christ and each other (I know it means so much more, please allow brevity here) To make the LS symbolize the doctrinal conformity of a group to the exclusion of others that ARE in the body of Christ, because of denominational and doctrinal walls, is in my opinion a concept that is totally foreign to the spirit of Scripture. Again, we have taken authority away from Christ, for it is His ordinance, and has not been given to a denomination or even a local church to be used to foster and propagate their particular denominational distinctives. The LS does not symbolize our covenant as “Baptists†but our covenant with Christ, the head of the Body. If a person is deemed to be truly regenerated by the Spirit and by the Spirit baptized into the Body of Christ, it would be a sin against the Body to refuse to break bread with him, because of doctrinal differences or denominational affiliations, (it is
valid to exclude individuals based on matters of discipline and gross theological error of the highest order). The LS clearly was not given to symbolize our unity as SB, or our unity as a local assembly, but to symbolize our covenant with Christ through His Blood. To make it an ordinance of a denomination is in effect rending that part of the Body away from the rest of the Body. Denominations may be a necessary reality, but when any denomination attempts to act as if the ordinances are theirs to the exclusion of the rest of the Body, they are in grave error. We should take the Lord’s Supper with all Blood bought children of God, even if they don’t see eye to eye with us on every issue.The Test: If they are in the Body of Christ, we better break bread with them!
More on Hospitality…
Over at Sharing in the Life, Theron has (finally!) posted on a topic that we have been discussing for some time… hospitality. What does hospitality mean?
The unity of the church…
I’ve written several times concerning the unity of the church. But, I’ve never written anything like this blog entry. I hope you enjoy, and I hope it causes you to think about the church in your area.
Long distance community?
The internet is a marvelous thing. A few weeks ago, one of the families within our community moved to another country. We have been keeping in touch with them through email, but sometimes that’s just not enough. Now, with the help of a program called Skype (www.skype.com), we were able to talk to them live! We’re looking forward to talking with them often.
I know they read this blog occasionally, so the following message is for them (and they know who they are):
We love you, and we miss you! We thank God that we can partner with you. Though our hearts sometime ache from being apart physically, know that no distance can separate the bond of fellowship that God birthed in all of us. May His Spirit testify to you of our love for you!
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as … you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:2-11)
Owe no one anything except to love one another…
The title for this blog post comes from Romans 13:8. November was a hectic month. Now, most of our months are hectic: homeschool, Tae Kwon Do, piano lessons, Spanish lessons, school, teaching, work, Bible study, gathering with the church… At the beginning of the month, we found out that my wife needed surgery on her ankle. We had already planned a family trip to Washington D.C. in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, so we scheduled the surgery for the week after our trip. So, for most of the month, we had to “limp” through our normal schedule while my wife stayed off her feet, recovering from surgery. How did we make it through?
Well, we made it through the month because God continually lavished his love on us through our family, both our earthly family and our brothers and sisters in Christ. We try to live every day dependent on God. That’s not always easy. Sometimes we end up depending on ourselves. Its easy to fall into step with what we know that we can accomplish. Meanwhile, whenever we must depend on God, he is faithful. May we continue to live each day dependent on him.
However, the more we live dependent on God, the more we must realize that everyone is dependent on God. Do we recognize that we owe “love” to one another… not because of what they’ve done for us, but because of who God is and what he has done for us?
As my wife continues to recover, it is my desire to allow God to use us to lavish his love on others. We owe one another love, because we owe God love. I know… I’ve been the recipient of his love in very practical ways over the last few weeks.